This invention relates to a method of changing settings information of a shared directory, and more particularly, to a method of allowing a client computer operated by a user to send a request to change settings information of a shared directory.
File server devices, which enable multiple client computers connected to one another via a local area network (LAN) to share a file, are widely used in business organizations and the like.
A file server device provides client computers with a shared directory, an area in which a file is written.
Each shared directory is identified by an identifier unique throughout the network. An identifier assigned to a shared directory is called a shared directory address.
Once a shared directory address is specified and entered in an operating system (OS) or a file sharing client program that is run in the client computers, the client computers can store files in, or read files out of, a shared directory at the shared directory address.
A file server device may be mounted as a special-use computer.
There has been known a technique with which a computer running an OS executes a file sharing server program to assume the function of a file server device which provides a shared directory (see, for example, Non-patent Document 1: Jay Ts, Robert Eckstein, and David Collier-Brown, Using Samba, (U.S.) 2nd ed. (Sebastopol, C A: O'Reilly and Associates Inc., Feb. 2003), p. 1-3).
A file sharing server program receives, from a client computer connected to a file server device via a LAN, a request to access a file that is stored in a secondary storage system in the file server device, and uses a function of an OS run in the file server device to access the file stored in the secondary storage system.
The file sharing server program operates according to settings information which is described in a settings file stored in the file server device. The settings information is managed by an administrator commissioned by a user of the client computer.
The secondary storage system in the file server device is a single hard disk drive. Instead, a disk array device may serve as the secondary storage system when the secondary storage system needs to have a large storage capacity.
A disk array device is a combination of multiple hard disk drives to provide redundant virtual storage areas. Such virtual storage areas are called volumes.
One way to build a virtual hard disk drive by combining hard disk drives is a technology called redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID). There are several different methods to combine hard disk drives and those variations are called RAID types. The price per capacity and price-performance ratio of a volume vary depending on the RAID type.
The price-performance ratio is also varied depending on the specification of the single hard disk drive. Therefore, a RAID type and a single hard disk drive that are suitable to the use of the secondary storage system should be chosen. Another factor that can make the performance, capacity, and the like to vary is the specification of the disk array device itself.
In an environment where a large storage capacity is necessary, many file server devices are connected to a single LAN. A shared directory in such an environment is migrated among the file server devices to balance, for example, the access load applied to the individual file server devices. This improves the overall price-performance ratio of the computer system.
However, migration of a shared directory makes it necessary for a user of a client computer to specify and enter a new shared directory address assigned to the migrated shared directory in the client computer without fail.
Global name space (GNS) is a known technology to relocate a shared directory in this type of environment in a manner that makes the relocation transparent to client computers (see, for example, Non-patent Document 2: Jon William Toigo, The Holy Grail of Network Storage Management (Indianapolis: Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, Oct. 2003), p. 61-64).
GNS is a technology for translating a logical shared directory address that is specified and entered in a client computer into a physical shared directory address at which a shared directory is actually located. GNS makes it possible to access a migrated shared directory by entering the same logical shared directory address that has been used prior to the relocation in the client computer, despite a change in physical shared directory address of the shared directory that accompanies the migration.
A user of a client computer may wish to change settings information of a shared directory such that the shared directory is placed in a file server device, a disk array device, a volume, or the like that has the optimum storage characteristics from the viewpoints of, for example, price per capacity and price-performance ratio according to the type, utilization state, and the like of files stored in the shared directory.
Conventionally, a user of a client computer accessing a file server device who wishes to change settings information of a shared directory notifies the administrator of new settings as well as the network address of the shared directory of which settings information is to be changed, and asks the administrator to change settings information of the shared directory.
Receiving the request, the administrator directly changes settings information of the shared directory or operates a management program or the like to change settings information of the shared directory. In short, the administrator changes setting information of each shared directory separately.
One of common ways for a user to request the administrator to change settings information of a shared directory is e-mail.
A Web server program Apache provides a user who publishes contents online with a measure to change settings information of a directory in which the contents are stored without the intervention of the administrator. Apache changes settings information of the directory storing the materials when a settings file which describes settings of the directory is stored in the directory (see, for example, Non-patent Document 3: Ivan Ristic, Apache Security (Sebastopol, C A: O'Reilly and Associates Inc., May 2005), p. 137-139).